Feltain moved over to the front of the troop compartment and spoke to the Fallen Soul crew. 

"Deathblight, work up an intercept for one of those crystals if you can, preferably one which keeps us least exposed to them. I want to get close enough for a scan; maybe try snagging one with a Gate," he looked over at Shadowlight, who considered and then nodded. 

"Aye, sit," Deathblight, the gunner/commander nodded and he and the pilot set to work.

Stab shook her head as she watched the alien shps communicate.

"Whoever they are, I don't think they've encountered any powers which significantly out-tech them before."

"Oh?" Feltain said looking over.

"This communication system. Assuming it's not an emergancy back-up... Sir, our sensors can pick up the laser flashes emitted from any point on the sphere, because we don't strictly need LOS at detail-scan ranges, right? So against us, their only means of stopping us intercepting their communications is by putting out enough signals they exceed our ability to translate them."

Feltain seemed to think a moment and then nodded, "Right."

"Well... What would happen if they ran into someone with much more advanced technology, with universal translators much better than what we have - like the Strayvians or the Shardan or the Blastarons?"

Feltain winced, getting it.

Catching the tilted heads of the some of the other troopers, Stab elaborated. "Unless their language is encoded, like, better than a Cybertank's brain, at [i]that[/i] level of tech, sorting out the chaff from the real data is not even going to be a blip. 

"Honestly, I'm not even sure how well it'd hold up to an analysis from the magical translation spells WE have, if we set up a proper team. But we can't know that until we can get a proper detail scan of one of their transmissions, instead of just catching the visible light, since there may be subtle permutations to the frequency we can't see until then."

"Which we're not going to do unless when can safely get closer," Feltain said. "We're too out-matched otherwise." The chance existsed their technology was such an overwhelming advantage for the Aotrs to functionally out-of-context-problem the aliens existed, but until it was a certainty, no-one would be taking any chances. "We might get a better shot at it from the ground near their base when we do our recon."

As the pilots worked, Stab idly wondered if you could make an [i]anti[/i]-G-Well generator. Presumably a regular G-Well generator - whatever effect it had on their FTL system - would make them more maneuverable, would an anti-G-Well lock them down? The Aotrs had never developed a G-Well system (though she suspected Lord Death Despoil almost certainly had one they'd captured squirreled away somewhere), but they did have anti-grav... So could you build one big enough...?

As Feltain and the crew finished conferring and the Fallen Soul began to move again, Stab amused herself with some scroll-back calculations, trying to see. She concluded that no, it probably wouldn't be practical, as Aotrs grav technology almost certainly couldn't get enough power to extend the field out far enough to be worth it (never mind actually having to manufacture one), but it was an interesting diversion.